Republican party needs to attract more black voters

OK I always hear those on the left make this claim, the Republican should adopt policies to attract black voters, need to do more for black voters.

OK what exactly are these policies the Republicans SHOULD adopt, what should they OFFER black voters they are not now?

Not, some vague nonsense about what they SHOULDN'T do, like bogus voter suppression claims. Not baseless ad hominems like stop being racist or stop being hostile.

Specific policies and proposals they should adopt that would attract more black voters to the ranks of the Republicans and why those policies and proposals would do so.

What exactly is it that keeps black voters overwhelmingly in the Democrat camp?

And I really want to hear from liberal/leftest/progressives and us conservatives let THEM tell us.

I've posed this before to a few resident liberals and they always refuse to give anything specific.

 

Actually, I'd like to hear YOUR answer to that question. I have a feeling, unknowingly, your answer will explain why blacks DON'T want to vote with you.

 

For once a reasoned OP on the issue.....

I have maintained for years that the hit on the Republicans about race is manufactured and fostered on economic grounds. Like all socialists, the Democratic Party has to buy votes with your money, in small and big ways, from Obamaphones to 99 weeks vacation called unemployment insurance; of course those benefiting will take their vote to the hand that feeds them.

The real issue is socio- economic, and caused by progressive thinking; make getting through high school the objective of education; they graduate but can't move on to post secondary or technical training which is where the real job demand is.

 

Dodge noted as expected.

 

I don't think Republicans can win Black votes in any appreciable degree. At least not this generation. The reason is because most people don't really vote on "issues." The vote to win approval of peers. That's why although almost all of the Black people I've known personally were small "c" conservatives, hardly any of them voted Republican. It's a matter of trust. As a party, Black people don't trust Republicans and thats why some of the craziest advertising can run a few days before the election, like "Republicans want to re-institute Jim Crow" or "Republicans want to chain blacks to the back of a pick up" carry weight. Remember Biden saying that "He is going to put y'all back in chains?" That stuff works, even though it sounds crazy. A minority group that feels threatened and under the gun, as Blacks often do, is susceptible to that sort of message. After all, Jim Crow is actually the memory of many older people, and deep down, they must think if white ever got a chance...

Also, Democrats feed into those feelings, legitimizing them. Zimmerman? Obvious white racist murdered an innocent child. Ferguson? Clearly racist cop murdered a gentle giant. There are tons of threads like that where the Democrats jump to the side and say what Black people are thinking. That's why Democrats can never let there be racial peace. They need to keep their voters anxious and afraid.

So what to do? Like I said, not much is going to happen for this generation. It's lost to Republicans, no matter what Rand Paul thinks. He'll have the same "success" as Jack Kemp did. Republicans need to come up, and stick with an agenda that benefits the working class, which is where the Republican base is at, but the party agenda isn't there yet. A large majority of Blacks fall within the working class and could benefit from a working class agenda. It's an opportunity the Republicans have since the Democrats started to abandon the working class in the 80's. It's a slow generational thing, but gradually the Democrats moved away from where working people were at. Republicans picked up the cultural cache of the working class but are only slowly moving to picking up the policies that would benefit them. Policy wise there won't be that much competition from Democrats, but the Democrats have the Identity politics down pat and they can hang on to Blacks and Latinos long after their policies have abandoned them.

 

Republicans should offer good government, honesty, respect for the individual, respect for the Constitution, jobs, national security, and concern for the country. You know, the things in which Democrats have no interest. When blacks decide they want those things, they'll have a party for which they can vote.

In the meantime, the Democrats can continue to buy votes. One would think a people with a history of being bought would be a little more sensitive.

 

All nice sounding but I am looking for these specific things Democrats claim Republicans need to offer, specific policies and proposals. What exactly are these black voters looking for that Republicans don't seem to be offering which results in blacks voting 95% for Democrats.

 

It would certainly help for non-racist conservatives to denounce and condemn racism from other conservatives rather than defend it or deny that it exists which is all too often the case. They cannot fix their issues with black voters overnight, but that would be a great place to start.

 

Well, the first step would be stop the whole "Black people only vote because they get welfare," that is an inherent and patronizing talking point in right-wing rhetoric like the above post.

Work on that or the rest is meaningless.

 

Lincoln was a Republican who freed the slaves, and it was Republicans who founded the NAACP. Some may have accused the GOP of being racist in pandering to Black voters to keep them in line, but the vast majority of Black Americans chose to be Republicans.

Then, the Civil Rights Act, a Democratic initiative, was passed and enforced. De iure discrimination was abolished. Blacks transferred their support in large numbers to the Democratic Party, as White guys, especially Southern ones, fled to the GOP, with the Dixiecrats as a stepping stone.

Americans are increasingly diverse, racially and ethnically, 62% currently identifying themselves as non-Hispanic Whites. Yet, today's Republican Party is nearly 90% White, the Democratic Party 60% White.

Republicans can only answer their pertinent existential questions for themselves, with the acknowledgemet that all men are created equal and, in America, it is the People who determine their governance.

Angry White Guys kvetching about Black Americans and moaning about their media entertainers' demonic "Liberals!" may not be the most propitious approach to entice Black folks to return to the erstwhile "Party of Lincoln."

But, of course, the AWGs are welcome to stick with that approach if they're enjoying themselves.

Think of it as an self-indulgent, ultra-partisan "Make-A-Wish" Foundation.

 

TOUCHE'!!

 

Another excellent point shrouded in "dog whistles."

Stop deliberately suppressing voters in large urban areas.

This one is harder to interpret from right-wing speak. "Gentle giant?" From what I can tell, almost everyone understood that Michael Brown wasn't a saint. However, the punishment didn't fit the crime and then the Ferguson Police escalated the situation by deliberately attempting to provoke the situation as opposed to attempting to calm it down,.

This is the most reasonable portion of your post.

However, when you say the "Democrats have the Identity politics down pat," you're systematically excusing the right wing and its culture of "Race-card" ethos. Add to that the racially biased "War on Drugs," and Republican voter suppression efforts that they gleefully to target large urban centers as well as the "dog-whistle" laced rhetoric of the right, and it's not hard to understand why the best the Republicans can hope for is that minorities choose not to vote at all.

And guess what... you can add millennials and women to the stack of people who have been turned of by right-wing politics.

 

And once again a dodge.

 

From the OP

"Not, some vague nonsense about what they SHOULDN'T do, like bogus voter suppression claims. Not baseless ad hominems like stop being racist or stop being hostile.

Specific policies and proposals they should adopt that would attract more black voters to the ranks of the Republicans and why those policies and proposals would do so."

Now try again

What specific policies and proposals?

 

Sorry, ToddWV, but I couldn't read your entire post because the "dog whistles" and "code words," you embedded were so offensive I fell to the floor weeping and will have to take to my bed while I wait for my attorney to return my call.

But, I want to say that I do not think Democrats demanding that poor blacks stay in non-performing union-dominated public schools where they will not get an adequate education is racist. And I do not for a minute think that the Democrats driving manufacturing and entry-level employment opportunities out of the cities and out of some states is a racist plot. It disproportionately effect poor blacks but I don't think it's a plot. it's just stupidity. And, the Democrat demand that fathers be driven out of black families if the women and children are going to be "helped" by welfare is not racist either. They do the same with Hispanic families and white families whenever they can. This is a part of the Democrat War on Men.

So, the racism on the left is institutional and so ingrained it's not even considered as a conscious act.

 

By discounting the most prominent issues, the OP indicates a lack of interest in truly attempting to appeal to these groups.

 

Ahhh dog whistles eh? Please specify what, in my post, was a "dog whistle."

Please explain the "race card ethos." I know what the race card is, but I don't see what that has to do with Republicans.

Please explain how the war on drugs is racially based. I know about the differing sentencing guidelines for crack and regular cocaine, but it wasn't the Republicans who actually made that change, so again, what has that to do with Republicans specifically?

Voter suppression, as I understand it, is a code word for requiring and ID to vote. If you can't even correctly identify what it is you are actually talking about, how can you be taken seriously on the subject?

 

Hmmm... standard right-wing ploy.

The thread is about what Republicans should to in order to attract more black voters. Yet the fallback is the same... blame the Democrats and point out what the right-wing has deemed is the true problem... it's not their platform, it's not their incendiary rhetoric, it's not the blatant "Stop the Vote" agenda, it's not the outright hostility towards minorities... it's the Democrats. Lol, classic lame attempt at projection.

 

I have asked for specific polices and proposals and hopefully the WILL BE prominent. Waiting.........

And your knee-jerk "stop suppressing voters" hardly makes sense, if they were in fact suppressing black votes and they stop this bogusly asserted suppression how would that get more blacks to vote for Republicans? Blacks are not voting for Republicans because Republicans suppress their voting?

Trying something of substance that makes senses. What policies and proposals are the Republicans not making that would attract black voters, or maybe the converse what specific polices and proposals by the Democrats keep blacks voting for them that the Republicans do not embrace.

 

Ah, the standard liberal ploy. We get to attack you but you can't fight back. You have to sit and say, "Yassuh, Massa Marx."

 

And I see you haven't answered the question. What policies and proposals does it take to win the black vote?

 

Ok, here is my opinion in regards to the republican party. They are by the change in demographics(which they were consensual in allowing) doomed to go basically extinct. But there is a way for them to go forward, and remain viable. Yet this will require essentially a change in their paradigm.

Traditionally, at least in my life, the democrats until the last few decades, were seen as the party of the middle class, the working American, while the republicans were seen to represent the elites, big business, the rich, big banking. Given the fact that the democrats no longer actually represent the working American, the middle class, but rather social ideals, a greater welfare state, there is a great vacuum here, that opens up a possibility for the repub. party. Yet it would require the repubs moving away from representing the people they have generally represented, and begin a platform that represents who the dems used to represent. I think this is their only hope of salvation, for otherwise they will be relegated to the dustbin of American history, given the changes in demographics.

Now if the repubs changed in who they represent, this would attract all kinds of people, whites, Hispanics, blacks, Asians. For it is indeed the fact that working people and the middle class have little representation today, and how many people strive just to be middle class? The middle has been shrinking due to the power of the new oligarchy.

 

Thank you, Lil Mike, for a very articulate and truthful post.

- - - Updated - - -

One Mind, you bring out many excellent points! Thank you.

 

Did you read Lil Mike's post above?

 

Well, one good place to start would be to remedy the bizarre bias towards straight, white, non-Hispanic, Christian male candidates the GOP seems to have.